Forgotten
by Anna.Love.Life
Summary: After finding out about the Hydra infiltration of Shield, Fury tasked the Avengers to the duty of shutting down the bases as they found them. Captain America, Iron Man, Romanoff, and Barton all knew their duties and it was just like any other mission. Or it was, until they shut the computers down and one of Hydras field agents turns out to be someone else. OC Possible romance.
1. Chapter 1

"Agent Romanoff, you go in through here while Agent Barton, you give her covering fire from here." The deep voice of Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America, could be heard from all parts of their undercover little air plane.

There were eight people around a small table with blueprints and maps laid out across it. Four of which were slightly above average soldiers who managed to make the cut onto the Captain's team. The other four were above average human beings.

Iron Man in his gold and red suit stood across from Steve Rogers, gazing idly at a some layout he held in his hands for a computer system. Clint Barton stood to his right, listening clearly to what Steve Rogers was telling him. After all he was trained to be a field agent and he knew how to listen to orders. Natasha Romanoff stood to the right of Steve and was nodding uninterestedly.

They all knew the plan. Going over the plan again was more of a precautionary than a necessity.

"Tony, while Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton take care of here you will enter through the main window here and-" Steve started his orders as he pointed to various spots on the map, he didn't get far though as Tony quickly interrupted him.

"Shut down the whole systems mainframe from the command center, yada yada." Iron Man finished for him. "I'm well aware of the strategy Cap'n." He said with a roll of his eyes. Captain America merely gazed at him with a dark look. While Steve may have had a lot of respect for the man's brilliance, he disliked his attitude, his lack of respect for everyone around him, and his general disregard for all rules whether they were for his safety or the safety of others.

Steve remembered when Director Fury informed him and Agent Romanoff that Tony Stark would be accompanying him. He hadn't been able to hide his surprise nor had Agent Romanoff been able to contain her arguments to that.

While Tony may have many positive skills that were good to have around, his lack of ability to follow orders caused a problem in military situations such as this. Fury had then explained that Tony would be the only one capable of shutting down the highly advanced computer system this particular base had.

This base was located deep in the backwoods country of Germany, in an isolated area towards the border of Switzerland. Their orders were simple, stay out of radar, get in, shut the base down, and get out.

The terms of Germany's agreement to such a procedure were not well known to any of the members of the party, but the Director insisted that the weapons and computer technology this particular base was playing around with was highly dangerous and needed to be shut down immediately.

So the team rallied up and accepted what it was. The only one of them that may have had any real idea what they were going into might have been Tony Stark, but he wasn't about to mention it to any of the others. For once he was tight-lipped about knowing something that the others didn't, either that or he didn't actually know.

"Tony this isn't a drill and this isn't New York. This is a military operation that needs to go as close to possible to the plan we've laid out. We'll have a very small group of people and a very limited window of time." Steve Rogers spoke with a bit of agitation to this tone, but the message he wanted to get across was very well noticeable. "Don't screw this up."

He chose to ignore the eye rolling Tony responded with in light of the fact that the rear doors to the aircraft had opened, signaling that they were indeed here.

The plan was simple. They'd arrive in the dead of night with darkness as their cover and parachute in from a few thousand feet up.

Romanoff and Barton would sneak in from the right side of the compound while Tony created just enough of a distraction to keep the attention of the enemy without giving away who he was or why he was there, just something to distract them beyond the front gates.

As soon as Romanoff and Barton were in they would quickly and stealthily take out the guards to the right of the base and get underground in the base before Tony would follow.

Meanwhile, Captain would enter the left of the compound over the fence and take care of the left side of guards and the front guards, letting in his four teammates. Two of whom would stay on the upside of the compound while the other two went underground with the Captain from the opposite side that Romanoff, Barton, and Iron Man went into.

Once inside those two were to check for any captives as they had received intel of kidnapped scientists and researchers who may still be held prisoner.

As soon as it was confirmed that there were either no prisoners or that they had been evacuated safely, the other three teammates on the opposite side who were steadily working their way to the main command center would put their side of the plan into effect. Tony was to download all the information onto a hard drive so that they could have the intel and then erase everything, terminate the communications grid, shut down the system's mainframe, and set the compound's self-destruct timer.

Everything was relatively cut and dry.

Not only was it cut and dry, but it was actually going as plan.

The team jumped from the plane undetected and began their descent. Even Captain had to have a parachute at this distance, but they were a safe enough distance away that once they deployed their pitch black parachutes, you couldn't see a difference between the black of the parachute and the black of the sky behind them without shining a spotlight on it.

Once the team was safely on the ground a couple miles behind the base, they split up and went in opposite directions around the sides of the base, one left and one right.

There was little to be said from any team member with the exception of Tony, who spent his time running whispering impatient comments on how it would be infinitely easier to just let him go in guns blazing and just finish it off easily.

However much he may have wanted to blow everything out of the water, Director Fury made it explicitly clear that they were to be as undercover as possible so that there was no time to send out any warnings to any other bases. Not even Tony could deny the logic in that. The less that Hydra knew, the better. If all they had to let them know that they had been attacked was a pile of dead bodies and a blown up compound, that would give them less to go off of when preparing for Shields next attack.

As the teams reached their designated spot, they sat in waiting for an extra few minutes as Tony continued on around to the front of the base.

He was there simply to be a distraction, so all he had to do was go rustle some trees around. Any form of wild animal at the front of their base would be just enough to catch their eyes. As he used the suits strength to shake some of the bigger branches from in front of the compound and hid in the brush, he commed the team.

"If your planning on breaking in, I'd do it now. I've got their attention as much as I can without being shot at." Tony spoke in his typical sarcastic tone, but with a slight sense of urgency underlying it.

"Acknowledged." Natasha responded curtly. "Moving forwards."

"Confirmed." Captain Rogers responded, he moved forward the same as theirs. "Tony, retreat and head back around to Barton and Romanoff." He added as he quietly jumped up the tall fence that bordered the base.

While Captain Rogers may have had an easy time climbing up the fence due to his enhanced strength and abilities, Natasha and Clint chose to do things a little differently. Clint acting as a human launch pad, knelt on one knee facing away from the fence and clasping his hands together as a step stool. Natasha came running towards him stepped into his hand, he stood up and she jumped at the same time, throwing her up to catch the top part of the fence and pull herself up and over. While the fence had spikes on the top of it's posts, there was no barbed wire and she was easily able to avoid being scratched.

She quickly noted the two guards walking down away from her direction towards the back of the base and pulled her silenced pistol, quickly shooting two shots in their direction and leapt down.

"Clear." She spoke to her ear piece. Barton shot a quick arrow that acted as an anchor to pull him up to the top of the fence and then he jumped down beside her. At this point Tony had reached them and just briefly used his suit's propulsion system to give him a boost over the fence and land on the other side.

All three of them moved straight forwards to the building in front of them that led underground.

Everything was going as planned, at the rate they were going it was looking to be an in and out job. Fifteen more minutes passed and Captain was telling them over the ear piece that he and his two soldiers had obtained a couple of hostages and were heading out of the compound now.

However, as soon as Tony plugged in his hard drive and began downloading the files contained on the computer, a woman field agent came from the hallway into the main compound.

She was wearing all black, very similar to Natasha's skin tight outfit, only hers were loser fitting in some areas to allow better mobility, or at least better comfort. Looked more as though she was wearing cargo pants with pockets to fit things in rather than skin tight latex. She had a long sleeved black shirt on and a black pistol strapped to her outer thigh. Aside from that she had nothing in her hands.

Her hair was thrown in a bun and it was hard to see the color of it in this dark lighting. The moment she saw what was going on she leapt into action. Beginning immediate hand-to-hand combat with Natasha who just so happened to be closest. Clint fired off a couple arrows, but it was as though the woman knew exactly where to move to be missed and even with her slight distraction of exchanging blows with Natasha, he couldn't hit her.

She swung right and Romanoff threw up her left arm and swung with her own right arm.

It went on that way for a few minutes just blocking and swinging until the woman got the upperhand and managed to swipe Natasha's legs out from underneath her, but it didn't last long because Clint had slung his bow on his back and was now close enough to throw punches of his own.

The noises they made must have been heard from over the com because next thing they knew Captain was asking what was going on.

"What's the situation?" No one answered at first, so he tried again. "Romanoff? Barton? Report in!"

"Chill Cap!" Tony said hurriedly, fingers swiping furiously across the keyboard, brow furrowed in concentration. "Had an uninvited guest join us, seems she doesn't want to leave our party." He added nonchalantly.

"She?" You could hear the surprise. Captain Rogers had accepted that women played more important roles in society now, but he was still surprised to hear of a woman in this particular base. In the Hydra bases most of the active members were strictly male, it seemed odd that there would be a field agent who was female. Shoving those thoughts aside and focusing on the matter at hand he asked, "How long until you are done? We don't have much longer. ETA on the plane is five minutes."

"Not much longer, but it will be a lot faster if you just let me work." Tony responded agitated.

Meanwhile, Clint and Natasha struggled against with the woman not quite capable of getting the upperhand. She had just punched Clint with enough force to cause him to stumble back with blood dripping from his chin, when she immediately turned to block the punch that Natasha was throwing her way. Leaving her back exposed, Clint rushed forward just a second faster than she could turn around to respond from grabbing her arms and pulling her against his chest holding her arms at an awkward angle behind her back.

Natasha came forward ready to knock her completely out and end this fight, but she was prepared for that and using Clint as a post, she jumped up and propelled her feet outwards sending Natasha flying back into the opposite wall as well as throwing Clint backwards.

The two went tumbling across the floor and he lost her grip. She rolled over backwards landing on her feet in a crouching position before leaping forwards at Clint who had just managed to get standing. Stopping only once she had slammed him into the same wall that Natasha was still leaned against trying to regain her breath.

"Tony, anytime now would be nice." Natasha growled out through clenched teeth as she used the desk to her right to pull herself up and jump back into the fight.

"Just about there." He said as he finally finished hacking the codes for closing the system down and setting the self-destruct mechanism. As soon as he slipped in the code he'd gained, the system asked him to confirm, he spared a brief glance over at the three fighting figures before slamming his metal covered finger on the enter button, watching the screen go black before booting up a red self-destruct timer.

The response was instant. The base alarms began sounding and red caution lights blinking in every corner and the woman who had fervently been throwing or blocking punches, fell to the ground screaming and clutching her head.

Her response was so quick that Clint and Natasha slammed into each other in the space where her body should have been and Tony threw his arm up ready to fire in surprise.

No one knew what to do. The wailing from this woman was so loud and torturous that they all froze in surprise.

"What is that noise?" A pained voice spoke from Jared Timber, one of the four soldiers that had come for the mission.

"It's the uninvited guest." Said Tony drily. "Apparently, she didn't like our housewarming gift." Nobody appreciated his dead sense of humor.

Through the screaming there were some unintelligible mumbling as sobs began to form from this hysterical woman. It was like a switch had been flipped, where a strong, powerful fighting machine had once stood, now was a crying, wailing woman who was capable of nothing other than being upset.

"Listen to her Tony! That isn't from her failing to stop us." Natasha responded uneasily, eyes wide with surprise at her, hands clutched over her ears.

"Please make it stop!" They managed to hear one coherent sentence, with that one sentence she repetitively spoke between screams clutching her hands over her ears and putting her head between her knees. "Just make it stop, turn it off!"

"She's in pain!" Clint spoke with surprise.

"Well whatever she is, just grab her and get out of there!" Captain's voice answered quickly, "By my count, you have just under four minutes before that thing blows and even less before our plane takes heads out. The whole base is headed your direction by now."

"Fuck this!" Romanoff yelled, grabbed one of her holstered pistols and brought the butt end down on top of the screaming womans head. Silencing her immediately. "Alright let's go." She said looking at the surprised faces of Clint and Tony.

Iron Man came flying over and grabbed her with his metal arms before running out the door that all three had come in, Natasha and Barton hot on his heels. As soon as they made it through the long corrider and out of the bunker, Tony took off to the air, figuring he could just as easily fly out of there. The special Shield air craft hovered over the exit they'd just taken and Tony landed just inside the aircraft.

Clint quickly turned the notch on his arrows to a latch, grabbed one and shot it at the edge of the aircraft. He wrapped an arm around Natasha who in turn wrapped her arms around his shoulders and the arrow he'd loosed pulled them up and into the aircraft.

Once on board the plane took to the skys to get out of radar of anyone who might come to figure out the explosion. It wasn't long before the team was staring out the back end of the airplane when red lit up the night sky as the base was laid to waste by it's own equipment.

Captain closed the doors on the explosion as they flew to safety.

"Okay, so who is that?" He asked as he turned around to look at the unconscious woman who was draped across Tony's arms. The three team members who'd witnessed the whole thing exchanged glances at each other briefly, trying to form a response.

"I don't know." Is all Natasha could come up with.

* * *

**So please tell me whatcha think! I'd love to know if this is something you might be interested in reading! Feedback is welcome, so long as you aren't negative! Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated while criticism will be ignored. (:**


	2. Chapter 2

**So thank you for my review! I appreciated the encouragement! Which thus led to the second chapter, because unfortunately for me I get this idea in my head and then it gets stuck there til I either write it down or lose my interest in it. Hopefully this will continue to enrapture your attention and if you have any more advice, suggestions, words of encouragement! I will take them all!**

**If anyone was interested in being a proofreader or beta or just a general check it over and make sure it all lines out, let me know! Thank you! (:**

* * *

To say that Director Fury had been surprised was a bit of an understatement. When he found out that the eight of them had brought back a very able enemy who had been fighting them with skill that rivaled both Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton combined, he was less than pleased with any of them.

"You brought her here?" He yelled, his deep booming voice echoing across the command center. The workers at the computers all flinched but were smart enough to keep their eyes to themselves lest they bring his anger to their attention.

"Sir, she was hurting." Captain responded. Despite Director Fury being his boss, he wasn't afraid of him. Steve Rogers had a very strong sense of right and wrong and an even stronger sense of knowing that he wasn't going to do the wrong thing without having an incredibly good reason. "We couldn't leave her there."

These words didn't seem to appease the Director because his gaze darkened in his brown eyes as he stepped forward wearing a dangerous look.

"She was hurting? You think that just because she was hurting that gives you a right to jeopardize every life aboard this vessel and risk the safety of Shield?" He asked through tight lips over clenched teeth. "If I had a penny for every time one of my enemies was hurting, I'd be richer than Tony Stark could ever hope to be." He growled out.

"I highly doubt that, very few people can touch my level of wealth." Tony responded airily from his seat around the strategizing table, his eyes firmly locked onto the tablet he held in front of him. No one chose to acknowledge him, while he may not have been worried because he felt untouchable, Natasha, Clint, and the four soldiers were watching the exchange between the Director and Captain America closely. They knew that they weren't likely to get out of this situation without some kind of scolding. Thankfully for them, the orders had come from the Captain himself and they had just followed them.

"You disobeyed orders." Directory Fury spoke irritation and frustration dripping from every word. "I specifically told you no hostages."

"I did the right thing." Captain America challenged back, standing up in his spot across from Fury.

"You brought the enemy into our home." Fury challenged, stepping forward and putting his hand on the table.

"And you drop us off at their door. What's the difference?" Captain America responded equally as serious. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to cow down, Fury took a step back from the table and reassessed the situation.

"Well…" He started, his strategic mind coming up with a quick plan. "Since it was your brilliant idea to bring her back and you two didn't think to stop him," Directory Fury said in an easier tone but with a pointed look to Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. "All three of you will be in charge of watching her day and night until she wakes, and perhaps even after." He finished in a satisfied tone. Tony Stark snickered at that, knowing that none of them besides Captain would be okay with that. However, his laughter was not unnoticed and Fury turned his slightly satisfied gaze on him. "Tony, you'll be assisting Bruce Banner in the lab to study over her genetics and her MRI results. Since you two are my strongest minds, you'll be working non-stop to figure out what were the anomalies found in her test results."

"Aw, confining me to the play room with the big man?" Tony asked in a mock disapproving voice. "You gotta work on your punishments." Once he finished speaking he rose and walked from the room. It was clear that whatever he was studying on that tablet had enraptured his attention, because he hadn't even looked up at Fury once the entire time they had been sitting there.

"You brought the Hulk on board and didn't tell us, yet find it acceptable to ream us for bringing one small unconscious woman onto the ship?" Natasha's voice rose in decimals at this, standing up. Her anger was clear, but there was an underlying tone of fear.

"It's different when it's a team member than when it is a yet to be indentified woman who could pose quite a big threat too us." He answered shortly, unfortunately that answer wasn't good enough for Agent Romanoff.

"Yes, you're right. The difference is one we can expect to react with violence while the other we have to hope that he doesn't get upset." Natasha spoke shortly before turning to storm out of the command center, stopping at the door to turn and face him. "And then you force him to deal with someone who purposefully tries to get a reaction out of him. I'm beginning to see your logic now Fury. Somehow though, it all ends to dangers being within our own walls." She finished her irritated rant before storming out of the room. It was Clint's best guess that she was headed to the training room for some much needed stress relief. He didn't have much to say to Fury, not knowing quite what else to add that hadn't already been stead, so he chose to nod briefly in his direction before following her out of the room to save her from causing more damage than necessary.

With only Captain America, the four soldiers, and Director Fury left in the room it was quiet, if only for a moment. "I'm not kidding Captain, I want eyes on her at all times." Director ended the whole conversation with that one sentence before dismissing them all with a wave of his hand as he turned back to facing the pilots of their helicarrier.

* * *

Steve Rogers didn't have a problem sitting bedside until their hostage woke up, after all it wasn't long ago that he had been waking up after being frozen in the ice for years on end.

He wasn't sure what he expected when he finally reached the medical wing and reported in to the medical staff so that they could navigate him through the many corridors that was Shields personal hospital. What he did know was that he was not expecting a sedate beautiful woman laid out on a bed in a thin blue hospital gown with her hands cuffed to either side of the bed.

Seeing her when she was unconscious after fighting he had known she wasn't a below average woman, but seeing her here, with her dirty blonde hair sprawled out underneath her face and her slightly tan skin marred only by the few cuts and scrapes she had received in her brawl, he wasn't sure this was the same woman he'd taken aboard his shield escape ship. She had obviously been fit, that much they knew by her petit muscled frame and from what they'd seen when she fought with Natasha and Clint, but to know that she was actually a gorgeous and worst off, innocent looking woman, well that was a surprise.

Natasha Romanoff was beautiful, by all means, she was absolutely pleasing to look at. However, one look at her and you knew she was more dangerous than you might have guessed. She had a look of danger and skill that remained no matter what she was doing. This woman laid out on bed, looked more like you'd find her nose deep in a book with an adventure than in a Hydra compound fighting as though she truly believed in the work they were doing.

Steve pulled his chair to the corner of the room, far enough away that he wouldn't be in arms reach should she manage to get loose and pulled out one of his reading books as he made himself comfortable. Somewhere deep inside him he felt a tug at his heart for this woman, he wasn't sure why, after all she was the enemy, but he couldn't help feel like she didn't deserve this.

* * *

"Left, right, right, left, back step, under cut." The simple words spoke followed by the sound of a fist hitting a protective glove was all that anyone needed to hear to know that Clint and Natasha were training.

Whenever either of them had too much stress, they locked themselves in a training room and spent the next few hours duking it out. The natural aggression they had was easily channeled into pure fighting ability, something both of them had great talent at.

The two were quite a pair and possibly if it weren't for the way the two of them were as far as work colleagues there may have been something more romantic there. The training between the two went on for another hour before they were both buzzed to the Command Center by Fury.

They briefly showered before heading up to the main room together. Director Fury and Agent Maria Hill stood hunched over papers sprawled out across the round table.

"About time you two got here." Director Fury quipped, though he was not annoyed. He slid a photo across the table to stop directly in front of the two who had just approached. "Look familiar?"

Natasha and Clint were gazing down at a darker blonde with beautiful breathtakingly blue eyes. They didn't recognize her at first, but before long they realized that they were staring at a picture of their enemy that nearly beat them. Once Fury could see the recognition dawning in their eyes, he slid over a few more photos. This time depicting her working in a laboratory.

"You know who she is?" Clint voiced the question floating in both his and Natasha's mind.

"I know everything about her down to her blood type." For some reason, this didn't really surprise either of the two or strike it odd that Fury had found all this out in such a short period of time. However, what he said next surprised them both. "She worked for us."

* * *

"So what do you think Fury is up to this time?" Tony Stark asked in a speculative voice to Bruce Banner. Judging by the slightly smug tone that rang off his voice, Bruce would have guessed that he already knew and was just merely finding some entertainment so that he wasn't bored out of his skull.

Despite being a super genius capable of doing intense calculations, his mind wandered, even as he worked and Tony Stark often needed some other form of entertainment. This was something that after having worked with Tony enough times Bruce had just gotten used to it and typically always responded in some relatively bored manner, but giving him just enough that Tony didn't pick up his favorite past time of attempting to get Bruce to go Hulk.

"I'm not quite sure, but I am sure you'll tell me when you figure it out." Bruce answered absentmindedly, his hands in the air guiding computer boxes across the glass screen in front of him. He slid one screen all the way to the left sending it over into the glass screen in front of Tony. While Bruce may have been a master study of radiation and its effects on the human body, Tony was by far the better hacker. "This firewall has some weird encryption that keeps changing every time I try entering the code it gives me."

"Ah, Jarvis, run a decoder for the algorithm in this program." Tony spoke quickly, not bothering himself with what his AI could do just as easily but took note of the odd programs it was running. It seemed slightly different than what he'd decoded on the base they'd infiltrated.

"Running sir." Jarvis answered him. Tony continued his own work looking over the test results from the hospital on the woman they'd brought in.

"What I don't understand is why she reacted once we shut down the computer systems." Tony spoke distractedly. "Unless she was connected to the system which is highly unlikely as we found no signs of devices attached to her, there was no reason for her to suddenly burst into screams. Look at these MRI's and tell me what these little anomalies look like to you." He switched his train of thought flicking his current window over to Bruces screen before clicking the screen Jarvis was running a decoding program on and taking over, finishing the unlocking sequence that much quicker.

To his surprise the file that spread out across his computer was indeed the effects of combining technology to the human body.

"I'm not sure." Bruce answered, enhancing and enlarging the photo as best he could to get a closer look at the numerous little flecks that almost looked like snow in her brain.

"Well perhaps this will give us some insight." Tony responded, flicking the files over to Bruce to look at as he went through them. "It look as though I was right, they are connecting humans to the machines." There were innumerable numbers of files on tests run on what seemed to be at least fifty other individuals. Some failed, some successes, though there were far more failures than there were successes.

The camera's that showed the Lab's the tests were run in also showed the woman they'd brought in as the head of the project. Or at least that's what appeared. She seemed to be the brain behind these sinister plots.

"So she was the researcher behind all of this." Bruce muttered, looking through all the files. "But that doesn't make sense." Bruce added, looking over at Tony. His brow furrowed deeply, lines of confusion etched into his face. "Why would she have been affected by the system shut down if she was the one in charge? Unless she was just upset about it." Bruce added thoughtfully as an after thought.

"No… This was more than just being upset." Tony muttered, his face wrinkled in concentration. "Something is missing. We aren't seeing the whole picture." Tony added as an afterthought, his brain pulling the difference he'd noticed in the programs to the forefront of his head. He picked up his personal tablet and began furiously swiping away at the screen.

"Jarvis, pull up the copy of the base files." Tony said quickly to his AI.

"What do you mean copy of the base files? That's what we have right in front of us." Bruce looked back and forth between the files in front of him and Tony.

"If you think for a second that they gave us all the information, then you are more naïve than I thought you were." Tony answered.

"Why would they give us an encrypted copy of only a portion of the files?" Bruce asked, he knew better than to trust Fury but he couldn't help the doubt that they'd go through the trouble of encrypting only pieces of what they had found.

"To throw me off, but it wouldn't work. Surely he had to know that. I decrypted this back on the base and while I made sure to copy it onto his hard drive, I also downloaded the information into my own personal storage." Tony began typing across the tablet, not trusting his AI to finish it for him quickly enough. After he finally broke into the systems information, he transferred the files from his tablet onto the computer screen in front of him. Pulling up files he'd not seen in the package he'd unencrypted that Fury had given them, he skimmed them briefly before sending them to Bruces screen. He was looking for something.

It wasn't long before he found something that stood out.

"No wonder she was injected with it." Tony said suddenly, looking up in surprise from his work to look over at Bruce. "She didn't work for Hydra." He sent the file to Bruce.

"She worked for Shield." Bruce finished, equally as surprised as Tony.

* * *

Meanwhile in the hospital, Steve Rogers sat thoroughly involved in his book, only sparing a few glances every now and again at the unconscious woman. It wasn't long though before he began to hear an irratic beep from the machines hooked up to her that quickly began speeding. He shut his book quickly standing up to stare at the woman as her heart rate and blood pressure spiked as she came back from the world of unconsciousness.

A couple nurses rushed into the room, one immediately turning back out to go get the doctor once they saw that she was indeed waking up.

The almost brunette haired beauty began pulling on her cuffs side to side, whilst shaking her head.

"No! No, no, no, no!" She mumbled, her voice heavy with the aftereffects of being knocked out. "Please stop, please stop! Make it stop!" She began to raise her voice, quickly rising to high pitched tones as she began thrashing around. The nurse still in the room hurried to her side with a needle full of something to settle her, but she couldn't get a grip on her arm and the needle was knocked from her hands.

The other nurse and the doctor came running in, but at this point she was screaming. Steve, unsure of what to do, walked a few steps closer to the bed to offer his assistance if necessary, but it seemed as though the doctors only had one goal in mind.

"Grab her side Mr. Rogers! Hold her arm down so we can sedate her." The doctor said quickly as he filled another needle full of the drug that would let her sleep peacefully. Steve did so, reaching up and holding one hand down on her shoulder, easily forcing her to lay down on her back, and the other arm pulled her arm out straight. His enhanced strength holding her down with little effort. She didn't weigh much and while she may have had muscles, after being unconscious for almost a day she wasn't a challenge for Captain America.

It wasn't necessary though, because as soon as he'd grabbed her arm and forced her to be still, she'd met his eyes. To say she had amazing eyes would have been an understatement. They were such a light blue that they almost shifted from blue to hazel depending on how the light hit them. She ceased her struggling and stared at him with desperation.

"No, please." Was all she said and in that moment he knew he wouldn't let them sedate her again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Well here is chapter three! So far so good I'm thinking. Really loving the ideas floating around in my head as the story starts to evolve. to be completely honest, the whole thing started with this idea that Tony of all of them would have calmed her down when they first had her screaming fit in the command center. Then however I decided maybe that wouldn't work and so far I am liking where my imagination is taking me.**

**However I want to clarify some things, this isn't really following the story line the last Captain America movie set for us. Shield is still in effect however Director Fury is just heading it now. They are still a team and so far that's all I've really got. So you could say that it's sort of an alternate universe. As more movies are developed, assuming I am still writing during that time, I'll definitely try to follow the plot line, but I have my own agenda as well. Like I will probably bring Bucky Barnes back into play, because this is almost a year down the line from where the Winter Soldier left off. Perhaps have him on his road to recovery or have him recovered (mostly) and working for Shield as well. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing.**

**So my point being, if you don't like my alternate universe, that's okay. But I just wanted to give you some heads up. Had I known how much this would really develop in my head into this idea then I would have told you from the get-go, but unfortunately I was blindsided by creativity. Not that I am complaining!**

**Anyways, any advice, constructive criticism, or feedback of any kind is much appreciated! Thank you and enjoy!**

* * *

"What exactly do you mean she worked for us?" Natasha countered, her green eyes piercing as she glared at Director Fury. If this was a field agent she would have known her. No agent of that skill level would have escaped notice of Natasha and surely the two would have gotten sent on missions together. She would have remembered. "We've never worked with her before."

"I have never met this woman a day in my life." Clint countered, his blue eyes skimming the pictures that were sprawled in front of him on the table.

"You wouldn't have." Agent Maria Hill answered easily. "She wasn't a field agent, she's a scientist." At this neither of the agents across from them could hide their scoffs of disbelief.

"You want me to believe that a woman who can nearly beat both Clint and I in hand to hand combat is a scientist?" Natasha could have laughed in their face, and whilst she didn't outright laugh she couldn't stop the disbelieving smirk from crossing her face.

"I don't want you to believe anything, I'm telling you how it is." Director Fury answered, then sliding over a small manila folder of files. "A few months before the events of Washington D.C. and the helicarriers, one of our laboratories was raided and around twenty-five scientists were kidnapped by Hydra. This wasn't a widely known event because the Lab itself wasn't a known affiliation to Shield. The scientists themselves had no idea what they were actually working towards or who they were working for. They were under the impression that they'd been hired by the Bureau of Biotechnology."

"It wasn't something that was well known, there were probably only a handful of ten to fifteen individuals in Shield who knew about it's existence." Agent Hill explained, looking from the two that were now opening the small file.

"How come an investigation wasn't launched to save them?" Barton asked as he went from picture to picture of different scientists and researchers who'd been abducted alongside the woman they had with them now.

"There was, but it was all a very hush-hush operation. We didn't need this getting public. As far as society knew the individuals had been blown up in an experiment gone wrong." Fury answered. "You could see how finding out that the technology they were working on could be very bad if put in the wrong hands." By this point Natasha and Clint had been pouring over the numerous pages detailing what their experiments were and what they'd been trying to accomplish.

"Micro-chipping? That's what this was about? Haven't we already done that to animals?" Natasha asked, going over the words printed out across the papers in front of her.

"That was merely the first step, we want a way to microchip humans." Fury answered. "Imagine how much a help we could have if a soldier was taken as a prisoner of war and he had a microchip in him. It would make finding him that much easier." He answered. "But also would make a way for the enemy to find him just as easier. We wanted technology that was wired into your brain, so that you could control it without having to press some kind of button. All that soldier would need to do once moved to a new location as think the command to turn it on and next thing you know you'd be able to locate him."

"That kind of technology though…" Clint started. "Firstly it's impossible, secondly were it possible you are looking into a whole other realm of possibilities. The number of things technology like that could be used for is limitless." He added, looking up at Fury.

"Most importantly though, that is impossible." Natasha reiterated when she looked up at Fury, but she wasn't done there. "What about the researchers? What happened to the scientists?" She added, moving back to the original focal point of the conversation.

"Well, like I said, we launched a small operation, but unfortunately once we were attacked in D.C. the files were pushed to the back. It was so hush-hush that everything was kept on paper, there wasn't a single thing linking Shield and the Bureau of Biotechnology together over any computer. The only small link was an offshore bank account that is nearly impossible to trace." Fury said heavily. Whatever was coming next in this conversation, Natasha and Clint could tell it wasn't going to be okay. "When you and Captain America decided to leak all of Shields secrets onto the web and we crashed the helicarriers, some of the lesser known secrets were pushed to the hindsight. So this situation was forgotten in light of the more serious events going on." That was the big bomb.

"Wait…" As realization dawned on Clint's face. "You mean to tell me that you had near twenty-five team members kidnapped by Hydra and you forgot about them?" Agent Hill at least had the decency to flinch at the sharp accusing tone of his voice, Fury just looked at them and nodded.

"It's been over a year since that happened…" Natasha spoke slowly as the realization of how much time had passed dawned on her. "What's happened to her since then?" Fury looked as though he was about to speak, but then his earpiece must have buzzed because he held a hand up to it and his brow furrowed in concentration. When his features straightened out and he looked back up at them, no one knew what to expect from him.

"She's awake."

* * *

Steve Rogers wasn't equipped to deal with emotional women. Point a gun at him and he knew just exactly what to do, but you throw him in a room with a hysterical woman and he froze up a little bit. Women in general made him a little more than nervous, though he had gotten better with it, he just didn't know how to react with them.

After she'd softly requested no more sedation with just two words and wide blue eyes with tears welling in them, things had calmed down relatively quickly. Shortly after that her heart rate slowed back down and her blood pressure fell back within normal.

Steve had made short work of the doctors who tried to inject her despite her request and with a commanding voice he usually reserved for missions he'd sent the now cowering doctor out to call the Director.

The woman had taken up a slightly comatose state of staring at the a picture painting to the far corner of the room with a blank face. Any emotion, tears, or words she might have had were swallowed up into this blankness that was left on her face.

Steve had retreated to his chair, but felt worried about what was going on with her, he wasn't sure what was going to happen. He knew one thing. He knew this mental state she was retreating too was not healthy and often led to more bad than good.

'Perhaps if I introduce myself instead…' He thought mentally. However even then he doubted it would do much good. Swallowing his nerves he stood and approached the end of the bed, not taking offense to her lack of interest in him.

"I'm Steve Rogers Ma'am. " He said calmly, trying to coax her into looking at him. "We brought you here when you seemed to be in pain after we shut down the Hydra base we found you on." Steve added, not quite sure what else to say. "Do you remember anything that happened?" He didn't necessarily expect an answer and wasn't surprised when she didn't say anything. "Whatever the case may be, it'll be okay now." Steve finally spoke after a few moments of silence, his blue eyes looking at her earnestly.

"No it won't. It will never be okay." The hopeless, broken voice that came from her surprised him. As did the shattered gaze he saw as her eyes darted over to meet his. The moment lasted less than a blink of time because the door began to open and she resumed her blank stare at the picture on the other side of the room.

Director Fury came in, flanked closely by Agent Maria Hill.

"Thank you Captain, that'll be all we need at the moment." Director Fury said curtly, clearly dismissing the tall man from the room. Whatever reservations Steve may have felt were buried beneath his training as a soldier and his ability to take orders, because he just gave a stiff nod.

"Very well Director, Agent Hill." He nodded briefly to her as he exited the room. Surprised to find Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton both in the hallway outside waiting for news. It seemed that he wasn't the only one who's interest had been caught by the mysterious woman. Though he didn't have half as much intel as the two in front of him.

Deciding that whatever would happen could happen without him he walked the route to his room. His mind was made up to take a run about the ship, he needed some exercise to clear his head.

* * *

"So what do you know about biotechnology Dr. Banner?" Tony Stark asked from his lounge chair on the opposite side of the room. The two had spent the last couple hours scouring files that Director Fury had given them as well as the ones that Tony had gotten on his own.

While normally Bruce Banner tried to keep his head down and not involve himself in Tony Starks usually law-breaking schemes, he couldn't deny that these files were needed in order to understand what was going on here. There was a bigger back story to this woman than they were being told. She wasn't just another brainless Hydra follower.

"Not much. Ask me about radiation and how it mutates cells, I could tell you everything." Bruce answered distractedly, chewing on the end of a pencil as his free hand swiped across the glass screen in front of him that acted as a computer monitor. "It looks similar to nanorobot technology that's used to detect diseases in humans, but just modified to link to the neurons in a brain. I'm honestly not quite sure…"

"Well if that were the case, it looks like she was trying to indeed create a type of equipment that would be controlled by an outside source. Which if that was indeed the case then that means the computer system that I just shut down was where the orders were coming from." Tony added, going through the files on the technology behind the systems mainframe. "It's too bad we destroyed everything, I could have gained quite a bit more information quite a bit faster if I had the actual computer to study."

"Yeah, I'm sure Hydra would have given you a few hours to study over their computer and how it worked." Bruce responded drily.

"Obviously not, but knowing what sort of program was running and submitting orders or who the orders were coming from would be beneficial to figuring out what kind of transmitters were in these little nanorobots in her head." Tony responded, ignoring the jibe. Tony threw his tablet to the side, standing up abruptly and tossing the little hackey sack in his hands up in the air, catching it moments later and repeating the process as he began walking across the room.

"I think there's something bigger that we are choosing to ignore." Tony redirected his thoughts, but he wasn't wrong. An elephant had worked its way in the room the moment the two had realized this woman had worked for shield, but neither of them had dared approach it.

"What's that?" Bruce asked, attempting to prolong the need for the conversation.

"Why is Shield studying ways of making mini-nanite robots that will control our behavior?" Tony asked aloud. Whilst he spoke calmly and had an air of confidence that never faded from him, there was no denying that even the idea of mind control worried him. Not one of the Avengers had lacked feeling the deep effects from when Loki the God of Mischief had hijacked a few of the agents and scientists made them into his own personal slaves. If Shield was studying this kind of stuff which led to Hydra discovering a way to make it possible, what did Shield already have in effect?

"I find it best not to think about that." Bruce answered. One thing you could always count on Bruce Banner for was that he would always be focused on the task at hand. The sooner he finished whatever his allotted orders were, the sooner he would be free to go from the ship and return to his little home in the middle of no where.

"Come on, even you could see the benefits to controlling the green monster known as the Hulk." Tony baited him. Years of working on and off with each other had given Bruce the patience required to not take the bait. "Mhm, no response? Well I know your thinking it too." Tony finished off, still tossing his little sack in the air for his own amusement.

"Fury wants us to figure out what precisely what it was that they accomplished on that base." Bruce finally answered him. "So that's what I plan to do, the sooner I get it done, the sooner I can get off this floating disaster." Bruce answered.

"Well we've essentially figured that out. I mean they've in no uncertain terms figured out how to get little microscopic computer systems to connect to the neurons in the brain and control what orders get sent through." Tony responded disinterestedly, summing it up. Anyone could have looked over the files and figured that out though, neither of them were stupid enough to believe that Fury didn't know what they were doing on that base. He wanted them to find more details, but at this point Bruce was fairly certain that without tasking the woman who had headed the research or at least finding a master of the field of study, they weren't going to be able to understand how it was happening. Bruce knew radiation and cells, Tony knew technology, but neither of them knew precisely how to get technology to attach to brain cells.

Somehow it meant that you'd have to understand precisely how messages were sent to and from, essentially you'd have to hijack the brain in order to scramble the messages it was trying to send and replace it with orders from a computer.

Still the two poured over notes and studies each in their own worlds of thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**Here we are, chapter four! I'm kind of excited to get to the good stuff, of course that may not be for a while. Soon enough though I'll begin switching to her point of voice. I'm debating whether or not I'll be using first person or third person for her. She is the main character of the story and when I'd like the reader to completely understand what's going on in her head and I feel as though as a writer I'm not strong enough to get that through third person point of view.**

**What do you guys think?**

**On a separate note, I'm kind of wanting to develop more of a Black Widow/Hawkeye relationship as well. Maybe go through some of their life. That is assuming that I don't develop Hawkeye as a possible romantic interest for my OC. However, I'm head over heels in love with Captain America as it is, he'll probably be my choice for romance, but im not positive. **

**Anyways enjoy as always! Comments and feedback greatly welcomed! (:**

* * *

Agent Hill and Director Fury stood at the end of the womans bed, looking at her. The doctor stood to the side of her bed, going over her chart.

"She checks out in good health, compared to the health records we pulled from last years physical she seems to be doing even better physically." Dr. Greene explained, flipping through the records. "The only thing that didn't seem right was the anamolies we saw in her head that I sent you the records of. I don't know what that is honestly, it isn't a tumor or any normal mass I've ever seen. Without surgery I can't begin to tell you what it is, but without knowing what it is surgery would be extremely dangerous because whatever is in there may be vital to her survival, especially since they seem to be surrounding the control part of her brain."

"Well we'll have to visit the possibility of surgery later on." Director Fury answered him, knowing that he wasn't planning on letting this Doctor know what exactly was going on inside her head. He didn't know the details and the specifics, but from the files he'd read over he knew that it was definitely something that would cause panic if widely known. "Do you know where you are?" Director Fury asked the woman laying out, but she had continued staring at the picture in the corner. Her eyes bland and her face giving away nothing at all about what may have been going on inside of her head.

"Do you know what your name is?" Maria Hill asked after a few moments of silence. So far they'd had all the files down as Jane Doe, but they knew who she was.

"Doctor, if that is all." Director Fury turned his dark eyes towards the Doctor. His message clear, he wanted the doctor to leave. "If you'd shut the door on your way out. We'll be needing a bit of time alone with her."

"Yes Sir, of course." Doctor Greene answered, fumbling with the file as he jolted into action. Before he reached the door though he stopped and turned to the Director. "Director, if I may, I saw quite a few anamolies on the temporal lobes of her brain as well." He finished turning away, but then thought he should elaborate. "That's the part of the brain that controls her memories. Though the temporal lobe itself was okay, it looked as though the small particles were attached to her neurotransmitters." He explained before hurrying out of the door and shutting it behind him.

"So what is he saying, that she doesn't remember what happened?" Agent Hill asked the Director, looking over at him curiously, but she received no answer.

"Do you know what happened to you?" The Director asked, but again he received no response. "You were kidnapped by Hydra and as it seems you worked for them to develop a way of controlling peoples actions." He went on, pausing a moment to gauge any reactions she might have. If she was processing what he was saying, she wasn't showing it.

"You were successful." He continued on. "It seems that after you succeeded they used your own creation on you, as it was you were then put under their control as a soldier." There was still no response from the woman.

"This is useless." Agent Maria finally spoke up irritatedly. "She's a vegetable." Director Fury still chose to ignore her response.

"Do you remember being kidnapped?" He asked, hoping maybe if he hit an emotional subject he'd get some form of response to let them know that there was actually a person locked in this body. "You were taken alongside twenty-three other coworkers." He went on. "Do you know what happened to them or where they are?" He asked, but when he still was stuck in silence, he finally switched subjects, figuring none of that was going to get a response.

"Do you know how to undo what they've done?" His final go to method. Director Fury's head was working quickly, trying to come up with a method to get some form of response. So when he'd waited an acceptable time for a response, he continued on. "I'll go ahead and give the okay for surgery then. Dr. Greene will have to do exploratory head surgery and then we'll go from there as for what the next best move is." This time he'd hit a trigger, her eyes had turned to him, staring at him with a dark brooding gaze. Obviously surgery was not something she wanted. Now that he had her eyes on his, he figured he might get somewhere as to getting this woman to do some form of response.

"Ah there you are." He spoke with a mock cheerful tone. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly just to let him know that she wasn't amused by his mocking. "If I give you a laboratory, could you figure out how to undo what has happened?" At this her brow went up slightly in surprise, these were all the minutest gestures hardly noticeable to the untrained eye. He could see her working it through in her head, figuring out his game plan. "Now I can't very well give you free reign, I'll have to assign someone to you at all times, but you'll be more or less free to roam the ship, with certain restrictions. You'll have all the best laboratory equipment and a couple assistants to aid you in your studies. Your only other option is to say no and I'll have no choice but to lock you up behind bars. You did after all try to kill members of my team, you are technically the enemy." Director Fury knew at this moment the trap was planted. Agent Hill gave nothing away to her doubts about what was going on in Fury's mind, she just kept her face placcid.

They waited in contemplative silence for a few minutes, watching the woman work it over in her head as she stared at the picture on the wall. After a moment, she finally met his gaze again and nodded briefly. Had anyone blinked they would have missed her nod.

"Very well, I'll have an Agent come retrieve you in a bit and you can start work tomorrow." Director Fury spoke curtly, nodding his good bye and walking from the room, knowing Agent Hill would be right behind him.

As soon as they were out of the doors and it was firmly shut behind them. Agent Hill turned to him her look one of bewilderment. "You're putting her in our labs?"

"She developed this, she'll be the only one who can figure out the way of undoing it." Director Fury answered directly, walking down the hall not bothering to meet Agent Hills disbelieving look.

"And the safety of those on the helicarrier as well as the people of the United States who's lives we protect? Does that not play a part in it? Who exactly are you planning on putting to guard her? Who are you going to let her work with?" Agent Hill had worked with Director Fury long enough to know that he had a plan, he wouldn't have went into that room and gotten those responses out of her had he not already thought it over. However, she couldn't contain the bubbling confusion as to what his end game was.

Fury, on the other hand, wasn't planning on giving her any answers and she knew by his silence that she wasn't to ask again. She'd find out when he wanted her too.

* * *

Steve had just stepped out of the shower when his ear piece vibrated letting him know he was needed on deck. Captain America was always on time when called for meetings, he was always punctual, orderly, and seemingly the perfect soldier. Sometimes though, when Director Fury called on him, he wasn't Captain America. He wasn't the super soldier who'd been enhanced by a serum he'd had injected into his body.

Sometimes he was just Steve Rogers, a boy from Brooklynn. That's who he was right now. He had quite a few heavy thoughts on his mind, he wasn't absolutely sure why either. He knew it had something to do with that woman left in the hospital bed.

He took his time getting dressed, figuring whatever he was being buzzed to the bridge for could wait a few extra minutes. He wasn't quite sure if he was ready to go on the next mission, because he knew that was what Fury was calling him for. It was the only reason he was ever called on.

The depressing reminder that he didn't have many friends. His mind brightened at the memories of Sam. After D.C. the two had remained good friends.

Finally fully dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a button up flannel shirt, he put his earpiece on his ear and began the walk to the Command Center.

Walking into the room expecting to see a few Agents he was thoroughly surprised when he came in to find Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff, Director Fury, and Tony Stark all involved in a deep argument. Bruce Banner and Agent Hill stood off to the side seemingly uninvolved in the argument, though not disinterested.

"It's time you come clean!" Stark demanded, sliding a packet across the table. "Why don't you tell us all why you think dealing with mind controlling activity is a good idea? Who's brains have you commandeered already?" His tone was dry and strong, as it usually was when he felt he was being deceived.

"I thought we were done with the lies." Romanoff added in. "I thought that Steve and I finished that when we leaked all our secrets to the web, but here you are still telling us that there is more that we don't know."

"You don't know the whole story-" Director Fury began, but he didn't get far because Clint wasn't having it.

"Damn right we don't. We never do." Agent Barton interrupted, cutting him off. "I won't be having my head taken over again, so you better start coming clean now before I walk out of here and not come back." Of the entire group, Clint Barton had the most reason to be concerned for brain controlling technology. It wasn't that long ago that he'd had his brain taken over by Loki and forced to attack teammates. Steve didn't have a clue what he'd walked into, and the voices rising together and all arguing was just confusing him even more.

"Hey!" Steve finally yelled as he approached the table. "Quiet down and let the Director speak." The table sank into silence relatively quick, it wasn't often that Steve rose his voice, but when he did it demanded attention. It was one of the few times that he reminded them all that he was actually very strong and powerful.

"Thank you Captain." Director Fury said in a quieter tone, turning to him. "If you'll take a seat and join us." He motioned to the empty chair between Agent Hill and Agent Romanoff. "There's some things you need to know, seeing how you seem to be the only one not sneaking around behind my back for information." He said with a pointed look to Tony Stark, who ignored it. "The woman you brought back from the mission in Germany is actually a former Shield employee."

To say that Steve was surprised would have been an understatement, but as surprised as he might have been there was an underlying lack of surprise as well. Almost as if hearing it was shocking, but with her level of skill it wasn't necessarily unheard of either.

"I say an employee because I mean an employee." Director Fury clarified. "She was a scientist hired by a secret branch of shield that operated independently called the Bureau of Biotechnology." This was shocking to Steve because by the way she fought he'd have pinned her for a field agent. Some form of undercover spy if he had to guess

Director Fury launched into a detailed explanation of what the Bureau of Biotechnology was trying to create, from undetectable locating devices to as far advanced as internal communications systems. He explained how they'd hidden the Bureau's existence and more importantly how they'd forgotten it. He explained the kidnapping and what they knew of the woman's life. After he'd finished his explanation Steve had to sit a moment and collect his thoughts. As per usual, he was the last one to know about the secrets behind the orders he followed and along that same line of thought he felt the swell of disappointment internally at the fact that yet again he'd been deceived by the people he risked his life for.

Setting his own personal regrets aside, he focused on trying to understand everything what was set in front of him.

"So what you're telling me is that this woman was one of our employees and was working on technology that would aid us in battle, but she had no idea of what she was actually working on?" Steve asked, when he got a nod to go ahead. "When were you planning on letting her know what she was actually doing?"

"Once we knew whether or not it was possible, because if it failed then the company could just redirect it's attention elsewhere." Agent Hill answered this time.

"Okay…" Steve answered, setting his elbows on the table and slowly taking in everything he was being told. "So then she was kidnapped and what? Suddenly she was informed she had to start developing this technology for Hydra? We are assuming that she was forced into it correct?" Steve asked.

"Yes, that's our assumptions." Director Fury answered.

"She's been in enemy hands for how long now?"

"Over a year."

"All because we forgot about her?" Steve asked, his tone tight and tense, holding back the emotions warring in his head. He didn't wait for Fury's confirmation. "What happened to the others? You said she was one of twenty-four abductees, what happened to the other twenty three? We only found a couple of researchers, but none of them were American."

"Most of them were used in the experiments." Fury answered. Steve didn't need to ask to know that they hadn't survived. That much was nonverbally spoken. He set back in his chair, not sure what else to say just absorbing what he'd been told now.

"So what do we do now?" Clint finally asked, the voice of reason amidst the chaos. At this Steve's eyes rose to Director Fury's face, his years of military service kicking in. This gave him peace, orders, instructions, things that he could do in his sleep, this was what he was made to do.

"We need to undo whatever they've done to her. She's the only one who knows anything." Director Fury answered him, looking at each of the faces around the table, stopping briefly at Bruce Banner and Tony Stark.

"Unfortunately Director Fury, there isn't much we can do here." Bruce Banner spoke up after a moment of thinking.

"You're asking a technology guru and a radiation guru to figure out how she managed to do what she's done to the brain." Tony Stark spoke up, sarcasm leaking into every word. "It's like trying to fit a couple pair of triangles into a circle. It just won't happen."

"He's right Director." Bruce reiterated, though more respect in his tone. "We can get the gist of what she's done, but I don't know enough about the brain to figure out how. The only way we'll really be able to do it is if she herself is explaining it and even then it may be beyond my capabilities."

"I know." Director Fury said with what seemed like, to everyone watching, a defeated sigh. "Which is why I am putting her head of the research and you two will be assisting her." To this everyone's, except Agent Hill, heads popped up in surprise.

"She's speaking now?" Steve asked looking at him in disbelief.

"No, but she will do the research. If for no other reason than to figure out how to undo what she's done to herself." Director Fury explained. "Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing how much of the information about the studies done at the base we shut down got out and traveled to other places, so we need a way to counteract what has been done and she may be the only key we have to that." He then turned his dark gaze onto Tony Stark. "I am trusting you not to screw this up." He gave a pointed glare at Iron Man. "She may never speak and that is fine, but I need what is in her head, so all of you will be doing absolutely nothing to screw that up."

"You realize that you are setting a very lethal fighting force loose in what is now the head of operations of Shield, correct?" Natasha asked in a suspicious tone.

"I am aware." Director Fury answered. "Which is why she won't be alone. She'll have a guard with her at all times that she is outside of her quarters, which will be locked until her guard returns to unlock it from the outside."

"Who will be guarding her?" Clint asked abruptly. "There aren't many who are of her skill, if anyone. She was near impossible to hold back between both Natasha and I." At this everyone glanced around briefly, they had to agree.

"I'm aware, which is why I've decided to appoint Captain America to this task." Steve's eyes shot up to Fury's in surprise.

"Me?"

"Yes." Director answered. "You'll be one of two strong enough to get her to stand down and I won't be sending you on any more missions for a bit, in fact most of our missions will be suspended until we know the depth of what happened at that base, we need to know what we are up against."

"Who's the other?" Steve asked after a moment, he couldn't deny the logic of it.

"Iron Man." To this Tony had to smirk successfully. "You'll just have to escort her wherever she'd like to go, though I imagine she'll probably stay in her quarters most of the time. We have a housing unit set up for her on the east end of the ship. She'll be against the glass so that she can see out, it's got all of it's own set up, including it's own kitchen so that she won't be required to join everyone in the mess hall. Once she's in there she'll be locked in until she rings you and you unlock the doors and escort her to wherever she'd like to go. At all times she is to be accompanied by either you or Mr. Stark, though it will be your assigned duty so be sure to have pre-arrangements made should you need personal time." Director Fury finished off without hesitance.

"Now, before we go any further, I believe introductions are in order." Director Fury stepped to the side and motioned towards the door as it opened and in walked the woman. This time she was dressed in simple jeans, a lose fitting black t-shirt, dirty blonde hair strung in a pony tail, and black tennis shoes. "Team, I'd like you to meet Elena Allen."


	5. Chapter 5

The group hadn't known what to expect when Director Fury allowed this woman to join them in the Command Center. Only Captain America had actually interacted with her, if you could even call it that. He'd merely said a couple words to her. Although he didn't know it yet, he'd been the only one to get her to say a single thing to him.

"Miss Allen, allow me to introduce you to the Avengers." Director Fury said steadily, but with an air of authority lurking beneath the surface. It was obvious to those around the table that he also was trying to still be careful to not upset her. With the hand of the Agent who'd led her from the medical wing nearing her back she stepped forward, avoiding the contact.

The others noticed that and took note. Some filing the information away for valid reasons, others, such as Tony, decided that he'd be investigating that behavior at a later date. Once she was arms reach away from Fury, the man who'd lead her turned abruptly and left the room.

"Over here we have Agent Clint Barton, otherwise known as Hawkeye. He's incredibly talented with a bow and arrow." Director Fury paused for a brief second wondering if he might get a response from her, but she merely looked to the person he pointed at and scanned him. As if mentally making her own judgement of him, but nobody could tell for sure what she was thinking. Clint nodded to her curtly, not sure that he'd have much to say to her and even if he did he didn't know quite where to start. His own reservations being about the research she had been doing for whatever reason. He wasn't quite sure she was someone he wanted alive, let alone on the same ship with him.

"Next to him we have Agent Natasha Romanoff, her alias being the Black Widow. She's a great undercover asset." He paused again, allowing a moment for that information to sink in. Natasha gave her a hesitant smile, one that she normally reserved for only the most special moments in her life, a genuine one. Unfortunately she never received anything in return, this woman was as stiff as she was tight-lipped.

"This is Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America. He was their when you awoke keeping an eye out for you." Director Fury introduced him and Steve noted how he'd specified that he'd been keeping an eye out for her rather than on her. Internally, he couldn't help the scowl that formed beneath the surface, he didn't like lies, not even the little ones. He kept his gaze on her own eyes and when her blue eyes met his, he thought for a moment he saw some brief recognition and some other unidentified feeling cross her gaze, but he couldn't be sure.

"Hello Ma'am. Good to see you up and about." He nodded to her cordially, offering her no smile, just the little verbal sentiment and as he expected he received nothing in return.

"He was the man who led the team that resulted in your rescue." Had Steve blinked, he would have missed the flurry of emotion that passed through her eyes. In fact it happened so quick he still wasn't quite sure that he'd seen it. Director Fury then turned to the end of the table where Tony Stark sat idly fiddling with his glass tablet. "This was the man who carried you out of there. His name is Tony Stark, though you may recognize him as Iron Man." Director Fury was sure to give Tony a meaningful glare and while his meaning behind it may have been conveyed clearly enough, Tony was apt to ignore it.

"Well hello there blue eyes." Tony said smiling up at her cockily. "I'm Tony, but you can call me Savior, that's fine too." He continued on shrugging nonchalantly. "Looking forward to studying with you, it'll be fun to find out how exactly those little nanites you created managed to actually successfully attach themselves to your brain, let alone how they can send messages and make you do things you don't really want to do, or at least I hope that's the case. Really, it's all very interesting and-"

"That's enough." Director Fury interrupted in his deep commanding tone. The damage was done already, for she had visibly tensed up and it was obvious that this was not a subject she wanted to speak of. Her beautiful blue eyes had hardened and her hands had tightened from their relaxed at her side positions. "Tony and the man next to him, Bruce Banner, will be assisting you in the lab. They have some of the brightest minds you could ask for. Tony is an expert in all things technology. While he may be a full man now, he previously had developed an arc reactor that sustained his life by keeping shards of metal from an explosion from cutting into his heart. He also finished building a completely self-sustaining energy source that powers Stark tower." Director Fury explained as if that may have appeased her. "Bruce Banner is an expert on gamma radiation, while it may not precisely be related to technology or the brain, he's an expert in how gamma radiation can affect cells."

"Glad you're okay." Bruce said after he'd been introduced. "It's nice to meet you." He nodded with that and it obviously signaled the end of any conversation he'd been willing to put forth.

"The last person is my personal second-in-command, Agent Maria Hill." Agent Hill stood when she'd been introduced, coming around the table to stand nearer to Miss Brooke.

"I'm glad to meet you, though I wish it had been under different circumstances." Agent Hill spoke softer than any of those around the table had heard her speak before. She normally had such a strong and commanding tone. "Nothing I say or do can attone for what's happened to you, but I will promise you that you can have every resource available to undo or fix what has been done to you." Though she may have intended for this to make the woman feel better, her eyes seemed to darken a shade more. She stood quietly, assessing the situation and what had been said to her, or at least that was the best guess any of those around the table could have given. After a moment, her eyes lightened a bit and she gave a curt nod. Director Fury was quick to jump on this positive note that they seemed to be ending on.

"Captain if you could show her to her quarters in the east wing." Director Fury looked to him before turning back to Miss Allen. "He'll be your escort, should you have any desire to go anywhere you can buzz him on this." He handed her a basic looking phone. It was a old Nokia looking phone, with nothing but a screen of numbers, the only three being to Steve, Agent Hill, and Director Fury himself. "Now then, Captain here will show you to your quarters where you'll find all the amenities you might need."

Steve had stood and come around to stand a few feet beside her, not wanting to infringe on her personal space.

"If you'll walk with me this way Ma'am." Steve said, motioning towards the door that she'd been led in by. As soon as they were out and beyond earshot, Director Fury turned an infuriated face towards Tony Stark.

"Mr. Stark, I'll only say this one and should I have to say it again I'll have you locked away for an indefinite amount of time for impeding on an investigation. Do not screw this up." He ground out from behind clenched teeth. "There will be no boundaries to press here because should you even touch the edge of it I'll have you buried down so far no one will know where to start looking for you. No one except a certified doctor and myself will be pushing her limits. She is crucial to both our investigation in Hydra as well as knowing what exactly we need to be preparing ourselves for." Once he'd finally quit lecturing Tony, he turned back to the rest of the table.

"Now, Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff, we'll be sending you back to the base to try and see if anything wasn't demolished. From the cover story that's been concocted it's been quarantined as a radiactive accidental explosion." He said now turning back to their tactics. "This will be a stealth mission, no casualties will be your goal from both sides. We'll send a couple drones out that way to see what activity is happening there and so long as it's clear you'll be sent in. The mission will be within a week or so. It will be a relatively quick and abrupt order, so be on the ready." With that they were free to go and so they did, the Director then turned back to the two scientific minds. "Tomorrow morning I need both of you in the lab no later than eight. She will be there by nine at the latest and we'll just have to play things by her rules." He was brief, he didn't have much more information than that. There was no telling how she would want to do things, let alone how the three of them would get along. He was determined to have the brightest minds on the job, so he'd have to take the risk. Tony merely nodded uninterestedly and walked from the Command center, Bruce following after him but a bit more respectful towards the Director. After they'd left and it was Nick Fury and Maria Hill left in the room, he took a deep breath and slumped down in a chair while leaning one elbow on the table and staring out the front glass.

"Tell me this wasn't a bad idea." Nick said not looking at Agent Hill.

"It was the only one we had sir." Agent Hill answered, but then she walked over and set a hand on his shoulder. "I believe it will work. As long as she isn't out of control we'll be okay." She said reassuringly, knowing that while her boss was mostly always composed and sure of himself, even he wasn't capable of knowing the future and while he believed in the decision he made, he still questioned himself. He was only human, after all.

* * *

Steve kept inconspicuously glancing to his side where Elena walked quietly. Her face was passive and unresponsive, just as it had been since shortly after she'd woken up. Steve was still a little bit apprehensive about the whole situation.

Not to mention he had his own wounded pride to nurse, no matter how many times he tried to tell himself to take Nick Fury with a grain of salt, he couldn't help but feel slighted every time he found out about yet another thing he hadn't known.

Shaking his thoughts, he looked up at the hall, deciding to speak to her. "So this is the main corrider, that meeting room we were all in is the Command Center as well as head of the ship." He wasn't expecting to get a response, but he didn't like the silence. Whatever was going through her head he wanted her to know it was okay that she didn't talk back, but he was there if she needed it. "This hall goes straight down the middle of the ship. You may have also figured out this isn't exactly a boat either, it's actually a helicarrier. There are four giant propellers that keep us upright, though this is designed so that it can sit in the water like a navy carrier."

And so they walked on just like this, Elena quiet as a mouse and Steve just casually talking about where they were, pointing out different important parts of the ship that she should know about, until at long last they finally reached their destination, the East wing.

"Here we are." Steve said stopping at a blank sliding metal door, using the mental map Fury had drawn with his words when he'd explained her living situation. To the left of this normal sized door was a pad, it was a hand scanner. Steve set his hand down on it and the door slid open. "Alright, well this is yours." He hesitated at going in. He wasn't quite sure if he thought it was a good idea to enter into her living quarters. She might want her own privacy.

"Well, if you want I can escort you in, but I expect you'd like to get to know your living situation on your own." She didn't say anything, just stepped over the thresh hold of her new living quarters. "Well, I'll leave you to it. If you need anything just buzz me. I will keep my beeper on me at all times so you'll be able to reach me any time. I don't want you to feel like you are trapped, because you aren't." If it hadn't been for his enhanced sense he would have missed the low scoff under her breath. "I like to go for runs in the morning and in the afternoon, so usually about 6:30 I'll go running and then again at around 6:30 p.m." He explained, just wanting her to know her options. "Breakfast in the main hall is at 7:30, lunch is at noon, and dinner is around 5:30, you are more than welcome to go to those, but as I understood it you should have a fully stocked kitchen and if you need anything specific just write up a list and Fury will see that you get it."

"That's all I can think of at the moment, so I'll be on my way." Steve finally finished. "Have a good evening Ma'am." With that he set his palm on the scanner and the door closed, he briefly heard the locks click and the woman was shut inside.

Letting out a long sigh he felt his shoulders droop a bit. What a weight he felt on him at the moment. Feeling slightly frustrated and uneasy he began to make his way back through the ship.

He couldn't shake this feeling of failure at the thought of twenty-four scientists and researchers who had been kidnapped. Shield had crossed the line on this one. Those people had no idea what they were working for or the dangers of the equipment they were trying to create. Surely they were smart enough to have realized all the uses the technology they were created could have become, but Steve had no doubt that the people who'd set it all up were very convincing and easily swayed them into thinking it was for the good of everybody.

Steve felt resigned to the fact that Shield was bringing more trouble than it was worth with everything that it had been doing. Why couldn't it just be a Shield? Why did it's leaders believe the best way to solve things was to develop better methods? Humans were asking for things that they had no idea of the repercussions. He knew firsthand. Along with Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner, all of these people had been there with him to help clean up the messes people made.

He wondered what would happen when one day none of these people were there anymore.

* * *

**There we are folks, chapter five! Hope you enjoyed it. Would love to hear some feedback? Maybe any thing you'd like to see happen or would be interested in reading?**

**I'm not going to put us in her head for a while longer because I'm not quite ready for it. I'm still developing the plot and where it's going to go! So we'll see... Anywho's enjoy! Thank you all!**

**Also I suppose I should be putting credits in here, I own nothing but my own wee little character! Credit goes to Marvel! (:**


	6. Chapter 6

"All clear on the West end Sir. Moving to north end now." Agent Elena spoke briefly into her headset. She hesitated before turning directions, waiting to hear the next order.

"Acknowledge, proceed." The curt response from her Commanding Officer gave her leave to completely move forward. She couldn't tell you why she obeyed without question, only that it was all she knew. All she wanted.

If one were to ask Elena Allen where she came from she couldn't tell you. She couldn't tell you the first thing about herself, only that all she knew was Hydra, for as far back as she could remember she had worked with the.

She didn't question it, whatever her life must have been like, she surely believed it had to have been bad for her to not start remembering until her training had begun.

Agent Allen walked quickly down the halls, not stopping to chat or stall time. She didn't have the desire to be lazy like others, in fact, aside from care from her personal being in her off time, she had no real desires besides working for Hydra. That was just fine with her. She didn't need the added distractions that seemed to make all other workers slack off.

Tonight was just like any other night, except that it had gotten quiet. It had become very quiet. Not that it was normally loud, except that it just seemed extra quiet tonight.

Deciding she'd cut through the command center before heading the north wing, she took a right down the hallway that lead to the center room.

The radio had been silent save for a little chatter back and forth between a few buddies every so often, which was typical for the night shifts. It just felt off, something about the air didn't sit right with Elena, but she just couldn't place it.

Walking at a slightly faster pace than she had been at, she made her way to the center. She approached the door way but her gaze was kept on down the hall despite turning into the room. It wasn't until last minute as she was walking through the doorway that she noticed three intruders.

Before she could have even a moment to radio for help the woman agent was on her and they were immediately drawn into a very intense battle. From across the rows of computers was a long distance agent with a bow and arrow, which had Elena had any thoughts aside from the fight, she may have noted that for someone to use that particular weapon was odd and slightly outdated.

Elena's brain processed things infinitely faster than most everyone elses, it was as though her senses could see things before she mentally could think it through and her body reacted out of instinct. She couldn't deny that whatever her situation, she was made to be a field agent.

Each arrow the man across the way sent hurtling through the air towards her, was a hair away from hitting her. If it hadn't been for her insanely fast reflexes she wouldn't have been able to dodge them. After a short while of exchanging blows with the woman agent, she finally managed to twirl around throwing her leg out as she did and swiping the woman onto her back. It was perfect timing as the man whom had been shooting arrows at her had approached by this point and began swinging at her as well.

The fight evened out for a few minutes as the three of them began to duke it out. The two intruder agents against the lone Hydra woman. For some reason Elena had an extremely high pain tolerance and no matter what she'd done to herself she never felt like she hurt. She could take a hit and while sometimes she'd lose her breath if the hit was powerful enough she never felt pain to accompany it.

It didn't take long though. Despite the fact that these were two seasoned, veteran warriors who were extremely company fighting alongside each other, Elena's mind was similar to that of a super-computer and she had figured out their method far sooner than they could have ever hoped to figure her own out, though hers was constantly changing.

She slammed her fist hard into the mans face throwing him against the wall and while she felt the skin split on her knuckles from underneath her gloves, that didn't stop her from turning immediately to block the punch coming from the woman. That was a mistake though, it left her back open to the man behind her, who thankfully didn't stab her with a knife, he did run up behind her and grab her around the midsection holding her to him tightly.

Agent Allens mind quickly sought a way to remove herself from that situation and when the female intruder came running at her front, she found it almost immediately. Using the man holding her as a sturdy wall, she jumped up and thrust her legs in front of her slamming the woman running at her backwards and against the wall behind her. The force alone knocked the man holding her back and they both went sprawling across the floor. Giving her the little leverage she needed to roll away from him and land on her feet. She immediately ran at the man and throwing her muscle into it she slammed him up against the wall the woman agent was still trying to catch her breath from.

The numerous variation of fighting styles and plans came running through Elena's head. She'd already planned out her future attack of the man in the metal suit that hadn't been involved in the fight which would have electrocuted him and left him uninvolved, she just had to finish off the two in front of her.

She took a step forward to attack when suddenly everything about Elena Brooke Allen came flooding back into her head. All of the methodical, computerized orders and plans drained from her mind and in came this overflow of memories, feelings, emotions, and physical pain.

As her entire past came hurtling back into her head, Ellie couldn't help but drop to her knees, clutching her head and scream.

She remembed the computer programs that were running, that had been controlling her mind, and worse than that she remembered that she'd created them. Hydra forcing her to invent microscopic machines to take over your mind, not only forcing but backmailing her. At that unwanted memory a fresh wave of such strong emotional pain came over her that it physically hurt and with no other option but to sob and scream, she couldn't help the tidal wave of feeling coming out of her.

Completely unaware of her surroundings or what was going on around her she didn't see the blow coming from the butt of the gun. She hadn't had a moment to panic or react against it, only slip into the peaceful black bliss that awaited her when her eyes shut. As her vision blurred out and she fell to the floor, she briefly caught a dark smoldering gaze of the man she'd been fighting before nothing.

* * *

**So I know it's been awhile, but I've been ridiculously busy with w****ork lately and I am exhausted! This chapter is a bit shorter than the rest but it's because I honestly struggled with deciding what I would do next. Since I figure now that she'll start developing relationships with each of the Avengers as she begins to integrate into her new life, I am going to need her point of view, but I didn't feel right just leaping into her point of view right at where she was. Plus we haven't had a chance to develop any of her character and while this is a good example of how what's happening is affecting the brain, it's still just the beginning of her character development.**

**Anyways. Well I hope you guys like it, and I really would love some feedback! Thank you to the two reviewers I have, I am glad you like it and I definitely will let you know what happens to her, just stick with me for a while and we'll get into it!**

**3**

**Credit goes to Marvel because I'm not that awesome and I couldn't possibly create the Avengers. I'd love them too much to share them with the rest of the world..**

**p.s. I was Captain America for Halloween.**

**p.s.s. the WWII female version of course. but it was awesome none the less.**


	7. Chapter 7

It took a moment for the rhythmic beeping of a computer monitor to bring life back into Elena's unconscious body. However the moment her head became clear enough to remember things, she couldn't stop the screams from leaving her mouth. Aside from feeling every physical bump, scrape, and bruise she had, she also felt the very real and very strong emotional pain blowing up in her heart from her memories.

"No! No, no, no, no!" Elena couldn't help but yell, trying to stop the onslaught of history in her head. She couldn't get a handle on it. She was vaguely aware of a man in the room with her, but she didn't have enough control of her body for her to really pay him much mind. She just was caught in this limbo inside of her head, suspended in a blanket of pain.

After having all of her senses cut off from the nanites controlling her head, so as to make her a super soldier, she wasn't prepared for the feeling to be so stong when it came back to her.

She briefly felt someone next to her bedside saying something soothing with an edge of panic to attempt to call her down, but it wasn't working. Elena didn't know where she was and all she knew was this immense heartbreak and pain.

"Grab her side Mr. Rogers! Hold her arm down so we can sedate her." She heard briefly through her scream filled heavy haze. It was as if a fog had settled down in her head, but she felt two strong hands grab her arm and her eyes darted up to the man holding her.

The fog in her head cleared and she had this desperate sense of not wanting to return, somehow she knew that should she allow herself to be sedated again it would come back. She stopped screaming and stared at him beseechingly.

"No, please." In a breathless voice, desperation dripping from every word she spoke. Whoever he was, he must have recognized something her gaze. Some heartstring deep inside his chest was tugged by her pleading, because he nodded his head.

"Okay." He responded, his deep baritone voice was commanding and he looked up to the doctors and gave a quick, curt shake of his head signaling that there were to be no more drugs going in her body.

Beyond that was no more screaming or yelling, in fact everything got silent really quickly. The man, Rogers, had made short work of the doctors with his commanding facial features and both him and the nurses had left the room in a hurry mumbling about alerting the Director, whomever that was.

Elena, on the other hand, had finally had just enough time pass by that the pain she felt wasn't overwhelming. It was still soul-crushing and left her feeling as though she was going to crumble at any moment into a cloud of dust that would float away.

Telling herself mentally that she needn't go there yet. So instead she blocked off the dark recesses of her mind. Those little corners where she felt the tentacles of insanity grip around the edges of her mind and begin pulling her into them. She shut that out, along with all the things that made her human. Something about having those nanites in her head had changed her. She had been forced to have her memories shut out and her mind basically wiped whilst under the control of Hydra, but now that she was free… Well once something has happened it cannot be undone. Her mind had been unlocked in ways that she couldn't undo.

Even if the emotional pain were not so deeply scarring, Elena would never be the same young researcher who was full of excitement and enthusiasm for studying new technology.

Mr. Rogers had made his way over to a chair and sat in it during all this, but he looked extremely uncomfortable from Elena's peripherals. He seemed like some kind of soldier, so she doubted he was used to this sort of situation. After a while of silence, he stood and came to stand by the end of the bed.

"I'm Steve Rogers Ma'am." Had Elena still been the same woman she used to be before Hydra, she might have giggled at his manners and his deep accent, or she might have swooned just as easily, depending on whichever emotion hit her first.

She would have introduced herself back to him in some cute, reserved manner that would have left him gaping at her blue eyes through long eyelashes painted black by mascara. There may have been a small coy smile pressed between those beautiful lips of hers which would have been a light pink glossy color to attract just the slightest attention.

However, she wasn't that Elena Brooke Allen anymore, she could hardly remember how 'Ellie', or so she was called, managed to be so happy all the time. She was a broken fragment of the woman who used to be. Her mind was a jumbled mix of what she once was, what she was forced to become, and what remained after they quit playing with her head.

"We brought you here when you seemed to be in pain after we shut down the Hydra base we found you on." Mr. Rogers said awkwardly, his eyes darting all over the place. Elena may not have been able to see his gaze and where he was looking, but she certainly could see the awkward stance. Not to mention, the nerves he seemed to ooze.

"Do you remember anything that happened?" He asked, thank goodness he wasn't focused solely on her or he wouldn't have missed the flinch she made at that question… She remembered every single second of her life and she wished for nothing else that she could forget it.

Thankfully he didn't give her long to fall deeper into the pit of despair that he had opened up. "Whatever the case may be, it'll be okay now." He said confidently, but Elena couldn't resist and she blinked her eyes to his.

"No it won't." She started unable to stop the tumble of words out of her mouth that flowed right into her next sentence. "It will never be okay." Elena's eyes looked into Steves with unbridled anguish and in every way she could, she was showing him a brief window into her ruined soul.

It wasn't long after that a medium height dark skinned man entered, flanked by an equal height black haired woman. Elena could only assume that this man was in charge of wherever she was. It was safe to say as he quickly dismissed Mr. Rogers, addressing him as Captain which made her second guess where he ranked.

His brief nod to the two and his curt response was just enough to inform Elena that the man was known as the Director and this woman was an Agent, much like she had been or so she assumed. The last few months of working as an Agent for Shield had enhanced her observatory skills by a tenfold. Normal little tidbits of information she may have overlooked before now caught her eye and she listened with ears like a hawk, absorbing all information accidentally given.

The doctor she had come to know as Dr. Greene, though not due to an introduction but through the name tag pinned to his chest. Apparently this 'caretaker' of hers deemed it unnecessary to treat her with the same social protocols as society dictates appropriate since she had settled in silence and no amount of coercion of any kind would convince her otherwise.

"She checks out in good health, compared to the health records we pulled from last years physical she seems to be doing even better physically." Dr. Greene spoke to the 'Director' almost nervously. If Elena had to guess he was one of those lazier people who relied more on others around him to do his job correctly so that he could skate by on their work. Elena decided then, gazing at the man with contempt, that if she ever deemed it necessary to begin speaking again, she'd do everything in her power to get this man fired.

"The only thing that didn't seem right was the anomalies we saw in her head that I sent you the records of. I don't know what that is honestly; it isn't a tumor or any normal mass I've ever seen. Without surgery I can't begin to tell you what it is, but without knowing what it is surgery would be extremely dangerous because whatever is in there may be vital to her survival, especially since they seem to be surrounding the control part of her brain." Of course no regular machines would be able to pinpoint what exactly was going on inside of her head, although it unnerved her that they'd taken scans of what was going on inside of her without her permission. She just kept her gaze locked onto the picture in the corner, keeping a passive non-responsive face plastered on. She'd be damned if she was going to let these jerks know what was going on in her head.

"Well we'll have to visit the possibility of surgery later on." The Director answered him, but since she had spent so much time listening to people and concentrating on what they said vs. what they meant, she had to doubt that he actually ever intended to have the idea of surgery judging by the tone of his voice. Though even if he thought it was a possibility, she'd kill herself before she allowed them to cut open her head again. 'Never again.' The thought repeated itself in her head. "Do you know where you are?"

The question was directed at her, but she refused to turn away from her picture, it was lending her the strength she needed to stay impassive and she knew from experience that emotion was only going to serve to get her into more trouble. Should she show any form of weakness, they'd exploit it and use her for all that she was worth. She'd had it done once before. The thought coiled inside her like a dark snake around her heart. 'Let's see them try to manipulate me, what more could they possibly throw at me that Hydra hasn't already taken away from me?' Her dark thought echoed through the eerie silence of her head.

"Do you know what your name is?" The female Agent asked her with a slight hint of impatience to the edge of what she said. Elena felt a dormant muscle used for facial expressions twitch somewhere inside of her cheeks. Mentally, she felt a disdainful look fill her mind. As if she'd forget who she was, of course she knew who she was. She was hurt not slow. However, despite the desire to glare at her scornfully, she kept her gaze placid and glued to the picture on the wall.

"Doctor, if that is all." The man asked, obviously implying that he needed to leave. Elena felt a rush of agreement. She was still unsettled by him looking into her head, she was just as eager for him to leave as the two in the room with her.

"Yes Sir, of course." Her doctor fumbled quickly with his words, she could tell that this 'Director' made him nervous and she briefly wondered what was so intimidating about him that had that effect. "Director, if I may, I saw quite a few anamolies on the temporal lobes of her brain as well. That's the part of the brain that controls her memories. Though the temporal lobe itself was okay, it looked as though the small particles were attached to her neurotransmitters." Then her room door was open and shut and he was gone just as quickly as he'd come. It was odd hearing her research being studied by someone else, she wondered if she could step back and observe everyone studying what she'd done what they'd see.

Would they accuse her of creating brain controlling technology? Would they understand that she had started this out of a desire to create a helpful technology, to help these Agents now in charge of her out in the field? No, they'd never understand. No non-scientist ever did.

That's the beauty of Science, it starts as something magnificent. Something breathtaking, that clutches the interest and begins a journey of discovery. It starts out pure, white, unsoiled… Then slowly, but surely, it is tainted by evil ideas and what was once a journey of discovery becomes a lust for success, power, control, and most often money.

"So what is he saying, that she doesn't remember what happened?" The woman asked abruptly, pulling her out of her reverie. 'No he's saying that it may block my memory, not necessarily that I don't remember it but I can't access it. Although he's entirely wrong and anyone with half a brain would know that since these neurotransmitters run off of a computer system, when that computer system is down so is the technology in my brain. Of course, not everyone has intelligence.' Elena thought snippily, coming to the immediate conclusion that she wasn't overly fond of this woman.

"Do you remember what happened to you?" The dark-skinned man asked slightly softer. He didn't notice her miniscule flinch as memories filtered past her eyes. Yes she remembered, she remembered every single little detail and it hurt beyond any words. Elena had to blink briefly as her eyes became slightly salty with the development of an unshed tear. "You were kidnapped by Hydra and as it seems you worked for them to develop a way of controlling peoples actions." He continued and Elena stung at the accusation. She never worked for them, she was threatened, coerced, and blackmailed, but she never willing worked for them.

"This is useless. She's a vegetable." The woman agent snapped, irritated. Elena couldn't help a brief feeling of smugness, she deserved to be annoyed, she was being quite rude to the possible invalid on the bed. Sure Ellie wasn't invalid, but if she had been then this woman wasn't being very understanding.

"Do you remember being kidnapped?" Brief flashbacks of men in all black, smoke, and lots of rope shook Elena's resolve to stay unemotional, shook but did not break. "You were taken along with twenty-three other coworkers. Do you know what happened to them or where they are?" Elena's body began to physically hurt at the thought of them. 'They weren't the only ones.' The thought ran through her head freely. "Do you know how to undo what they've done?" A brief pause. "I'll go ahead and give the okay for surgery then. Dr. Greene will have to do exploratory head surgery and then we'll go from there as for what the next best move is."

Elena's gaze shot over to him piercingly. She had been so wrapped up in the flood of thoughts and memories he was evoking that it wasn't until he mentioned surgery that she came back to the present. There was no way in hell she was going to have surgery and the dark glare she gave him was enough to convince anyone of that.

"Ah there you are." He spoke with a mock cheerful tone. Elena scrunched her face up in annoyance, this wasn't amusing to her by any means. It wasn't long though as the 'Director' continued quickly. "If I give you a laboratory, could you figure out how to undo what has happened?" Her brows shot up in surprise. She'd been going over every word he'd said with extreme thoroughness, but for this to be his end goal. To put her back into a laboratory after working with the enemy, this surprised her.

"Now I can't very well give you free reign, I'll have to assign someone to you at all times, but you'll be more or less free to roam the ship, with certain restrictions. You'll have all the best laboratory equipment and a couple assistants to aid you in your studies. Your only other option is to say no and I'll have no choice but to lock you up behind bars. You did after all try to kill members of my team, you are technically the enemy." He continued and for some reason she felt like she was a wild animal who'd been backed into a corner and now it was up to her. Accept the proffered meat from one hand or attempt to bite and be put down, she didn't think either prospect was all that appealing. Suddenly, she felt remorseful for having reacted to anything he said. He obviously was a very devious man. It started to make sense as to why all the people who worked here seemed to treat him with utmost respect and almost feared him, he was not necessarily a man to be trusted.

After thinking it through and mulling it over in her head, weighing her cons and pros, she finally gave him a very curt nod. Allowing no facial expressions to leak through her stony mask, he'd gotten enough from her and he wasn't going to get anymore.

"Very well, I'll have an Agent come retrieve you in a bit and you can start work tomorrow." With that, the two left her in silence.

Elena took this moment of peace and solitude to look at her surroundings and observe just where she was. 'What have I gotten myself into?' Though she had to assume this was better than her alternative. The last time someone had forced her into a lab it was to create horrible designs and technology and it was done through force. This time, it was merely coercion and it was only to undo what she'd done. Though she knew how thorough she'd had to be when creating it and while she herself had been going over every possibility of how to undo what was done to her, she wasn't sure if there was a way to do it.

Taking a deep breath and laying back on her bed, she let herself stare up at the ceiling. Might as well enjoy the peace before someone came to fetch her off to wherever she was to go to next.


	8. Chapter 8

"Miss, if you'll come with me." There was a mans voice waking Elena from her light slumber. The year she'd spent with HYDRA had destroyed any chance of leaving her drowsy as she awoke. Instead, when she woke it was always instantly, not a startle, but the moment her eyes opened she was alert and aware of all of her surroundings. Elena supposed that was what a year in constant fear did to you.

"I've left some clothes on the chair for you, I'll be just outside when you are ready. The Director is expecting us." The young man said as he turned swiftly on the ball of his foot and marched out of the room, letting the door shut behind him.

Elena finally forced herself to sit up. Her muscles clenched in pain from having been seated for so long as well as the abuse she'd caused them to endure from fighting.

Dressing wasn't easy and it took her several minutes to limber up enough to slip into the slacks and t-shirt. All of it was bland and brandless, she supposed that was a company ordered thing. Slipping out of the room, Elena began following the man at a brisk pace to wherever it was they were expected.

He wasn't saying much. Elena was grateful. She didn't have anything to add to conversation and even if she wanted to say something she wasn't sure her vocal cords would cooperate. There were too many things, too many variables, she felt if she opened her mouth to speak nothing but screams would come out.

Elena walked behind the unknown man at a steady pace, observing everything around her and keeping tabs on what turns they'd taken. Her observational skills had greatly increased. She supposed in a twisted, demented way she had the best of both worlds. All the skills that she had while under control of Hydra had stayed. Her mind retained all the information and training she'd undergone.

Without a doubt Elena knew she could take this man. The only difference would be that it was her own mind making split second decisions, not a computer machine. She probably wouldn't be as good as she was, but she'd still be better than most.

On a more scientific note, Elena couldn't help but wonder what the longterm side effects of such procedures would be? After all, they were forcing open parts of the brain that weren't naturally open and closing others.

"Here we are." A pair of sliding doors opened and the man stepped to the side to let her pass. Moments went by before she finally stepped into the room, his hand moving to press against her back which caused her to step forward away from the contact. The last thing she wanted right now was anyones hands on her. She had no need for human contact, especially that of a stranger.

Inside the room was a table with a group of strangers sitting around it, all eyes on her. One set of eyes she recognized from the man that had been sitting in her room when she awoke.

"Miss Allen, allow me to introduce you to the Avengers." The Director Fury called out to her. Elena took note of the way he talked to her and mentally filed it under the number of things that grated against her ears. Not that she had a problem with the Director, but she was not a time bomb and that's how he talked to her.

Or perhaps, it was because she knew she was a timebomb that it annoyed her. Every second that ticked was one second closer to something bad, something big. What it was, she couldn't say.

The man who'd led her in was gone before she could really register everyones faces and she doubted she'd ever see him again. 'What it must be to just simply be a peon…' She thought, remembering her own days as nothing more than one of the underlings briefly with a sense of melancholy. 'How lucky he is.'

Despite what one might think, living in the shadows of your higher ups is a blessing. Gone were the days where Elena would be invisible. She stopped being invisible the moment she signed her employment contract with the Bureau of Biotechnology. She and fifty or so other scientists who naively believed they were doing something to help innocents.

"Over here we have Agent Clint Barton, otherwise known as Hawkeye. He's incredibly talented with a bow and arrow." Director Fury began his introductions, motioning first to a handsome man that Elena recognized from her fight in the Hydra base. The rugged looking man nodded in a short manner towards her and Elena immediately sensed an underlying hostility. One that was buried deep beneath layers of order and an air of composure, but she could tell he had a deep sense of distrust for her. She wasn't sure if it was the fighting that caused it either.

"Next to him we have Agent Natasha Romanoff, her alias being the Black Widow. She's a great undercover asset." Director Fury must have realized that whatever he was hoping to get out of Elena wasn't going to happen so he moved on. This woman was also recognizable from the fight on Hydra. Elena immediately remembered the face and filed it away in the number of dangerous people she knew.

Elena knew that her Hydra programming had recreated her as a lean, mean fighting machine and Agent Romanoff had held her own against Elena. That in itself was a feat.

The woman had a cautious smile for Elena, one Elena couldn't bring herself to return. These two names were not familiar, but the faces were. All of these faces brought back several deeply buried memories of people she'd seen on tv. Heroes, the world had called them. Elena had to wonder if this was what heroes looked like; a group of people locked on a ship in a control room surrounding a table being introduced to a captive as if she were an ally.

If the story was going for a stretch, then instead it'd be an introduction as coworkers. After all Elena had been employed by the same organization that these people were currently working for. With that thought in mind, Elena couldn't help but immediately label every one of these individuals in this room as liars.

"This is Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America. He was their when you awoke keeping an eye out for you." Captain America… That name was so familiar in Elenas head she almost giggled. After all, as a child growing up she used to read all the comics and the stories of the great war hero. It was such an interesting story when they pulled the frozen man from the ice and he lived.

"Hello Ma'am. Good to see you up and about." Honestly, if Elena had been normal she would have swooned right then but Elena wasn't normal. Instead she was bitter, confused, and full of pain that ate away at her.

"He was the man who led the team that resulted in your rescue." Elena couldn't help but feel a wave of disgust, rage, and hurt all in one. She knew damn well that they weren't there to rescue her and imply it was insulting. The 'rescue' should have happened a year ago, but did it? No. Elena could recall the groups slow dying hope that someone would be there to pull them from the terror they were experiencing. She could remember as each day began someone in the group would say, 'Today is the day.' As if it really were.

'Rescue… What an overvalued word.' She thought harshly. 'Only the privileged get rescued.'

"This was the man who carried you out of there. His name is Tony Stark, though you may recognize him as Iron Man." Fury continued. Elena followed his hand direction and looked at the next person. She knew who Tony Stark was. Every scientist that ever had any goals of being great knew who Tony Stark was.

"Well hello there blue eyes." The man she now knew as Tony had a cocky tone to his attitude. She could tell he was an acquired taste, one she wasn't looking forwards to acquiring. "I'm Tony, but you can call me Savior, that's fine too." Elena could have laughed and could have also punched him in his smug face, knocking his teeth into his skull. 'Savior.' Where was her 'savior' when she was forced to experiment on her companions? Where was her 'savior' each time she was threatened with the live feed of a camera?

"Looking forward to studying with you, it'll be fun to find out how exactly those little nanites you created managed to actually successfully attach themselves to your brain, let alone how they can send messages and make you do things you don't really want to do, or at least I hope that's the case. Really, it's all very interesting and-"

"That's enough." The Director apparently knew that this direction of conversation wasn't doing anything good for his guest and he was so very right in thinking so. For so many reasons, Elena already didn't like this man. He was over zealous enough to proclaim himself a savior, his smug personality only fueled her burning hot rage, and her concerns were proven true, SHIELD already knew some of her research.

"Tony and the man next to him, Bruce Banner, will be assisting you in the lab. They have some of the brightest minds you could ask for. Tony is an expert in all things technology. While he may be a full man now, he previously had developed an arc reactor that sustained his life by keeping shards of metal from an explosion from cutting into his heart. He also finished building a completely self-sustaining energy source that powers Stark tower." Nothing Director Fury could say would have made Elena's opinion of Tony Stark any better. No matter how smart or technologically advanced he may have been, he was still only deserving of her fists in his face.

"Bruce Banner is an expert on gamma radiation, while it may not precisely be related to technology or the brain, he's an expert in how gamma radiation can affect cells." Elena turned her gaze to the next man, also with dark hair, and noted how he looked different than the rest. Elena wondered how he fit into the equation. What did an expert in gamma radiation really have that helped a team of fighting machines? She doubted they dealt with gamma radiation on a daily basis and if they did she certainly didn't want to be among them much longer, the last thing she needed was some form of cancer.

All things considered, cancer probably would be the least painful thing she'd have had happen over the last year. So perhaps it wasn't so bad.

"Glad you're okay. It's nice to meet you." Elena immediately liked him. Short, straight, and too the point, what wasn't there to like?

"The last person is my personal second-in-command, Agent Maria Hill." Agent Hill had come around the table to stand in front of Elena and she recognized her as the woman from her hospital room, the rude one.

"I'm glad to meet you, though I wish it had been under different circumstances." Elena noted the difference in her behavior from what it had been earlier. Something must have changed her mind. "Nothing I say or do can atone for what's happened to you, but I will promise you that you can have every resource available to undo or fix what has been done to you."

Elenas gaze darkened with thought. She didn't trust her, but this woman was making an effort to show she cared in some small way. Elena didn't believe in her, but she did feel obligated to acknowledge the womans compassion, so she granted a small nod of appreciation.

If the Director had been waiting for a moment to jump, he must have decided right then that it had happened.

"Captain if you could show her to her quarters in the east wing." He said quickly with an air of finality. "He'll be your escort, should you have any desire to go anywhere you can buzz him on this." Then to her surprise, he turned and handed her a phone. It was a basic phone, looking like that of an old Nokia and on it's screen it had nothing but a list of numbers. "Now then, Captain here will show you to your quarters where you'll find all the amenities you might need." At this point, Steve Rogers had stood and walked over to her, he was obviously acknowledging and respecting her desire for personal space, something she couldn't help but feel a little bit of gratitude for.

"If you'll walk with me this way Ma'am." He said motioning towards the doors she'd been led in through. She began walking in stride with him just a slight length behind so that she could follow his navigations.

As soon as they were alone, Elena could tell that this Steve Rogers wasn't terribly thrilled with watching her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something up with the way he was looking at her, the way he'd keep glancing at her sideways, the pensive look in his eye. Perhaps it was completely unrelated to her, perhaps it was that she was a woman he was babysitting. She doubted that Captain America's usual jobs included watching after a potentially mind controlled woman.

Briefly she recalled hearing stories of these heroes. Once upon a time it might have been a dream to meet these people. She might have swooned and asked for a picture. That was a long time ago. A different life and a different person…

"So this is the main corrider, that meeting room we were all in is the Command Center as well as head of the ship." Obviously Mr. Rogers wasn't okay with the silence. Elena had been so wrapped in her head of thoughts she hadn't paid much mind to him other than where he was going. "This hall goes straight down the middle of the ship. You may have also figured out this isn't exactly a boat either, it's actually a helicarrier. There are four giant propellers that keep us upright, though this is designed so that it can sit in the water like a navy carrier." Elena realized he wasn't expecting responses, just being nice. She didn't much like the idea of someone just being nice to her, especially since she knew it was out of pity. Had the roles been swapped she might have done the same thing. Still regardless of why he was doing it, she couldn't help but admit that his commentary was nice. It filled her head with something other than her painful thoughts and at least gave her something to focus on.

"Here we are." They stopped in front of a large metal door with a pad scanner to the side of it. Steve set his hand down on it and the door slid open. Elena doubted that scanner would work on her own hand. "Alright, well this is yours." She noted that he made no move to enter her 'living quarters' if they wanted to call them that.

"Well, if you want I can escort you in, but I expect you'd like to get to know your living situation on your own." Elena silently appreciated the understanding he showed and just stepped into her new home before he could lead her. "Well, I'll leave you to it. If you need anything just buzz me. I will keep my beeper on me at all times so you'll be able to reach me any time. I don't want you to feel like you are trapped, because you aren't." 'Not trapped, huh?' Elena let a low breath of air rush out. She highly doubted she was anything but trapped in this floating death space.

"I like to go for runs in the morning and in the afternoon, so usually about 6:30 I'll go running and then again at around 6:30 p.m." Steve kept on, if he noticed her disbelieving scoff he didn't say anything. She had to wonder if this was an invitation or if this was more of an 'I am busy, don't bother me.' "Breakfast in the main hall is at 7:30, lunch is at noon, and dinner is around 5:30, you are more than welcome to go to those, but as I understood it you should have a fully stocked kitchen and if you need anything specific just write up a list and Fury will see that you get it."

"That's all I can think of at the moment, so I'll be on my way." Steve finally finished. "Have a good evening Ma'am." Elena flicked her gaze back to him briefly before he set his hand down on the electric scanner and the door closed behind her. She heard strong metal locks engaging on the door and knew she was trapped.

Elena looked around what looked like a military issued one bedroom/one bathroom apartment with disinterest. She at least had a bit of a glass overlook to the side of her living area with a couch. She walked over too the glass and looked out amongst the clouds they floated through. Well at least she had quite a view. Elena decided a brief dinner and bed sounded the best. With no other big thoughts or concerns in mind she wandered to her open kitchen with it's bar and began flicking through the drawers to find something to eat.


End file.
